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7 school, Pedagogy, and the Colonies (1870–1914) Gilles Manceron in the aftermath of a war in which two provinces were lost, and in the context of a europe throughout which nationalities were being formed, the role of school was primarily to establish feelings of patriotism. it did so by calling upon both scholarly representations of history and popular legend. as ernest lavisse writes in an article titled “History” in his Dictionnaire pédagogique: “Make them love our ancestors the Gauls and the druid forests, Charles Martel in Poitiers, roland in roncevaux, Joan of arc, Bayard, all our heroes from the past, all surrounded in legend.” The valorization of colonial expansion played an important role in aggrandizing the nation. a geography textbook from 1913 offers the following “pedagogical advice” to future teachers: let us insist right now upon the importance of emphasizing our colonial empire in your lessons on elementary geography. The colonies already play an important role in the economic life of these countries; this shall only become more and more the case. it is thus essential that French youth be familiarized with the resources from the vast territory over which our flag waves. They must learn about the living conditions, their chances of success, and also the potential risks encountered by colonials in our overseas possessions. school can be a means of fortifying the aspirations of those appropriately suited to a colonial vocation, and likewise—and this is no less important—of discouraging those less suited [emphasis added].1 an emblematic text in which one notices, on three occasions, the use of the possessive “our,” which serves to give the students the impression that they are the personal possessors of the colonial territories, and therefore personally concerned by their future. Fashioning the Minds of schoolchildren The texts, and moreover the images in textbooks, issued under the Third republic fashioned the minds of several generations of schoolchildren. Beginning in the 1880s, schoolbooks (in which language, “French history,” and cultural mores 124 School, Pedagogy, and the Colonies | 125 were omnipresent, interweaving themselves throughout, regardless of the subject ) undertook the dissemination of a unanimous patriotic and colonial message . secular and religious schools alike put an emphasis on France’s “civilizing” mission, and in this explicit conditioning of young minds, there was an obvious goal. Claims about the future, as well as prophetic descriptions, abound. For example , the statement “algeria shall be one of our most precious resources in the future,” could be found in a geography textbook (emphasis added).2 However, reading books, more than history and geography textbooks, made the most lasting impact. The most obvious examples are perhaps the two books assigned for almost a century in schools, and republished in numerous editions. Charles Jeannel’s Petit-Jean, published in 1846 and used in schools until the 1930s, which had been practically an official book under the second empire, was given new life under the Third republic in the context of Catholic schools. similarly, G. Bruno’s Le Tour de la France par deux enfants, published for the first time in 1877 from a draft written in 1871 (the author’s name was itself a pseudonym), was reprinted on numerous occasions throughout the Third and Fourth republics. Both of these books feature a set of orphans, louise and Petit-Jean in the first, and Julien and andré in the second, who learn about life (the first by listening to Father Maurice, a retired sailor who has come to their village, the second through personal discovery on a journey across France). Guiding the Mind and Justifying Conquest The colonies, and notably algeria, are present in both works, especially in the case of Petit-Jean.3 references to France before 1789 are omnipresent, beginning with three chapters in which indirect allusions to saracens and the crusades abound. The figure of saint louis recalled the recent exploits in algeria led by the duke of aumale, the son of King louis-Philippe. at the moment this book was being written and published, the latter famously imprisoned abd el-Kader and seized his tribe. The historical allegory is underscored by the fact that saint louis’s crusade , as narrated by Father Maurice, who first takes a detour to tell the story of Bonaparte’s campaign in egypt—“it has only been fifty years since a Frenchman, the most amazing that has ever been, named napoleon Bonaparte, attacked egypt with a small army of brave men and, at the very feet of the Pyramids, won...

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